Gunmen Kill Leading Textile Industrialist in Bombay

[S.Ramani]

Bombay, May 7 (PTI) Leading textile industrialist Sunit
Khatau was shot dead by two unidentified motorcycle-borne
gunmen near the Mahalaxmi race course in central Bombay today.
The 55-year-old chairman and managing director of Khatau
Makanji spinning and weaving mill came under heavy fire from
point blank range when his foreign-make car halted at a signal
on the Mahalaxmi road at about 1145 hours.
The gunmen had followed Khatau as he was proceeding in
the car to his mill in Byculla from his residence at Tardeo.
Nearly 32 bullets were fired at him.
Police sources suspect the killing to be a part of the
underworld gang rivalry as Khatau was alleged to have had
enlisted the services of Arun Gawli gang to coerce the mill
workers to agree to the shifting of the mill to suburban
Borivali.
The mill revival package approved by the Board for
Industrial Finance and Reconstruction (BIFR) had envisaged
generation of resources by selling off the mill's prime land
at Byculla and setting up a modern mill in the suburbs,
provided the workers gave their consent to it.
Allegations were also made in the Maharashtra
legislature that in the recently-concluded elections to the
Rashtriya mill Mazdoor Sangh (RMMS), the recognised union of
textile workers in the city, help of the Gawli Gang was sought
to get elected office-bearers conducive to the shifting of the
mill.
The president elected in the controversial elections, Mr
Shankarrao Jadhav, was also fired at in Chembur in north-east
Bombay last month, but he escaped unhurt.
The car driver, Anandrao Ghorpade, who also suffered
bullet injuries in the hip, rushed Khatau to nearby municipal
nair hospital, where the industrialist was declared dead
before admission. The car driver was operated upon at the
hospital to remove the bullets.
Ghorpade was shell-shocked when the fatal attack took
place and has reportedly told the police that he may not be
able to identify the killers.
Khatau is survived by his wife and three daughters.
No one had been arrested in this connection.
The city police commissioner Satish Sahani and other top
police officials visited the spot as well as the hospital.
Two months back, a leading garment trader and owner of a
chain of readymade stores in the city, Babubhai Shah, was
stabbed to death near his house.

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